In the 29th February edition of Motorcycle News (MCN), Senior Reporter Steve Farrell led an article entitled “EU targets choppers” with a sub heading of, “Latest EU plans would ban long forks”.
 
Farrell starts the article with, “Choppers could be consigned to history by the latest proposals from Brussels to prevent us modifying our bikes.” The Motorcycle Action Group are reported as saying, “It could make building choppers impossible and accuses the EC of basing proposals on ignorance.
 
Nich Brown, MAG’s General Secretary is quoted as saying, “The intention to restrict modifications to forks had been expressed in a meeting between representatives of the EC,
 
DfT and motorcycle lobby groups. This is a simple case of an official on the EC who doesn’t understand motorcycles but doesn’t like the look of extended forks believing he needs to regulate it.”
 
Moving forward a week, that motorcycle soothsayer Kevin Ash, heads his column in Motorcycle News with “Why we need to stop EU banning choppers” and “explains” all the reasons why choppers should not be banned by the EU and concludes that this will be a, “huge blow against individuality and freedom of expression.”
 
Moving swiftly on to the glossy monthly “custom” magazines, Back Street Heroes (BSH) and 100% Biker. Their respective editors Stu Garland and Nik Samson write in their columns about the doom that custom bikes will face due to the EU proposals, and sound the death knell of custom bikes and long forks.
 
The BSH column has snippets such as, “Striking directly at the heart of all that we hold dear is a targeted attempt to prevent builders from fitting “long-forks”……” and “They have gone as far as proposing the successful completion of slalom and U-turn tests before a bike can be registered, which, they figure, should effectively ban long-forked chops without having to put any technical definition in black and white.”
 
The BSH column continues with all the other interpreted reasons why the EU proposals mean that riders are staring the enemy in the face.
 
100% Bikers Editor Nik Samson writes that, “The European Commission is starting to get down to business... And the first proposal of the day is this: they’ve decided that part of the new regulations, which will affect all bikes registered for the road in the future, should be re-written to prevent folk from using “long forks”. Yep, you read that right, and no, we’re not having you on.”
 
Samson continues, “the Commission now wants any bike being put through MSVA (Motorcycle Single Vehicle Approval) to complete tight slalom and U-turn manoeuvres to prevent modifications to the length of the forks.” He continues with all the reasons that choppers are not dangerous adding, “an age-old way of life that brings employment and pleasure to a huge group of people will have been scoured from the planet.”
 
Both BSH and 100% Biker editors recommend that the only realistic hope of seeing off such dire threats or you care about custom bikes, custom bike building or the custom bike lifestyle is to join the Motorcycle Action Group. 100% Biker’s Nik Samson writes, “to support the fight that they are putting up against this sort of “bullshit”.
 
And “bullshit” is a very apt word to use for the reporting by these magazines.
 
Why do we say that?
 
Surely there must be some basis in truth, or otherwise these “respected” magazines and their reporters and editors would not have put ink to paper.
 
Read the full article on Right To Ride EU and why we say – Choppers are here to stay.